Japanese Women

The women`s movement is gaining momentum in Japan, albeit slowly. Tradition persists that Japanese women leave the work force upon marriage, which may help explain why sex-discrimination policies in employment have been tolerated. Japanese women make up 35 percent of the work force but only 6 percent of managers, compared to the United States, where women are about half of the work force and one-third of managers. Overall, Japanese women earn slightly less than half of what men earn. This spring, a new equal-opportunity employment law goes into effect, eliminating restrictions on overtime, late-night work and job offerings for women.

In their frenzied desire to watch Iran play Bahrain in a World Cup elimination match, a group of young women disguise themselves as boys, get rounded up by soldiers and engage in a comic war of wills for the rest of the movie. Offside is a movie about sexual exclusion, fundamentalism's poverty of logic and even an implicit prediction of liberal triumph in Iran. But director Jafar Panahi must have decided that if he were going to make audiences laugh, they'd laugh 'til it hurt. Offside, shot largely in Panahi's trademark verite style, with non-actors and real settings, is a nimble-footed critique of Iranian law and its unpopularity: All the men that the women meet encourage them; the soldiers are only doing their duty.

The Morikami Museum in Delray Beach is presenting Strength and Diversity: Japanese Women in America 1885-1990. The traveling exhibition was created by the Smithsonian Institution and explores the challenges and triumphs of four generations of Japanese-American women. Included are p

Kickboxing Geishas: How Modern Japanese Women Are Changing Their Nation. Veronica Chambers. Free Press. $25. 278 pp. As the cartoonish title indicates, Kickboxing Geishas is not your average analysis of inscrutable Japan. Veronica Chambers is black and from Brooklyn, proud of her accomplishments, including having written several books on the experiences of black women. Most of the time, she sounds like a journalist: "I wanted to learn from Japanese women how they married the traditional with the feminist, how they balanced work with marriage and motherhood."

Kickboxing Geishas: How Modern Japanese Women Are Changing Their Nation. Veronica Chambers. Free Press. $25. 278 pp. As the cartoonish title indicates, Kickboxing Geishas is not your average analysis of inscrutable Japan. Veronica Chambers is black and from Brooklyn, proud of her accomplishments, including having written several books on the experiences of black women. Most of the time, she sounds like a journalist: "I wanted to learn from Japanese women how they married the traditional with the feminist, how they balanced work with marriage and motherhood."

More than a century ago, Japanese women known as Issei came to America as "picture brides" for arranged through-the-mail marriages to lonely Japanese laborers. Decades later, during World War II, more than 110,000 Issei and their American-born children (Nisei) were taken from communities and sent to poorly equipped interment camps. Third-generation Sansei, born after the war, often were raised with scant knowledge of their heritage. But encouraged by the civil rights movement in the '60s, many rediscovered their cultural roots.

In a move that could bring much-needed aid to food-strapped North Korea, Japanese and North Korean diplomats agreed on Friday to reopen negotiations to normalize relations between the two East Asian countries. After two days of meetings in the Chinese capital, diplomats agreed to an agenda of ambassadorial level discussions leading to an eventual exchange of diplomatic recognition between Tokyo and Pyongyang. In a gesture to appease volatile political sentiments in Japan, North Korea agreed to allow an unspecified number of Japanese women living in Korea to visit their families in Japan.

Haru Matsukata Reischauer, an author and journalist who was the widow of the former U.S. ambassador to Japan, died Sept. 23 in La Jolla, Calif. She was 83. Mrs. Reischauer's career bridged the cultures of her native Japan and the United States. She reported on her homeland for the Saturday Evening Post and the Christian Science Monitor, and was the wife of the late Edwin O. Reischauer, who was ambassador to Japan from 1961 to 1966 and a longtime member of the Harvard University faculty.

In their frenzied desire to watch Iran play Bahrain in a World Cup elimination match, a group of young women disguise themselves as boys, get rounded up by soldiers and engage in a comic war of wills for the rest of the movie. Offside is a movie about sexual exclusion, fundamentalism's poverty of logic and even an implicit prediction of liberal triumph in Iran. But director Jafar Panahi must have decided that if he were going to make audiences laugh, they'd laugh 'til it hurt. Offside, shot largely in Panahi's trademark verite style, with non-actors and real settings, is a nimble-footed critique of Iranian law and its unpopularity: All the men that the women meet encourage them; the soldiers are only doing their duty.

From Pictures from the Water Trade, 1985, by John David Morley: Women in Europe could play the same games as their husbands because they were less dependent on them than Japanese wives. Conversely, women in Japan were prepared to stay at home while their husbands were entertained by professional alternatives because they were not their rivals and their own security was never in doubt. They knew that the water trade, in the majority of cases, supplied no more than harmless titillation. ... What did Japanese women think?

Draped in a delicate lavender kimono, Chieko Mihori sits at a table in the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, flipping through the glossy pages of a book describing the proper way to wrap this traditional Japanese silk dress. It takes 35 steps just to put on the under-dressing, which wraps padding around the woman's body to straighten her figure. And it's about 100 more steps to slip into the hand-sewn kimonos and tuck the ornately designed, 4-yard-long midriff section firmly into place.

I am sick and tired of this breast-beating over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The atomic bomb was used to end World War II, period. You have to remember we were fighting a brave and determined enemy. The pictures you saw of Japanese soldiers supposedly surrendering were not so. They were mostly Korean laborers. Kamikazes were not just pilots. Japanese women and children were issued bamboo poles with hand grenades on the ends of them. Motor boats called kaitans were packed with explosives. The scheduled invasion of Japan was named operation Coronet in November 1945 and Olympic in April 1946.

Haru Matsukata Reischauer, an author and journalist who was the widow of the former U.S. ambassador to Japan, died Sept. 23 in La Jolla, Calif. She was 83. Mrs. Reischauer's career bridged the cultures of her native Japan and the United States. She reported on her homeland for the Saturday Evening Post and the Christian Science Monitor, and was the wife of the late Edwin O. Reischauer, who was ambassador to Japan from 1961 to 1966 and a longtime member of the Harvard University faculty.

From Pictures from the Water Trade, 1985, by John David Morley: Women in Europe could play the same games as their husbands because they were less dependent on them than Japanese wives. Conversely, women in Japan were prepared to stay at home while their husbands were entertained by professional alternatives because they were not their rivals and their own security was never in doubt. They knew that the water trade, in the majority of cases, supplied no more than harmless titillation. ... What did Japanese women think?

When Good Housekeeping magazine popped up on newsstands in Japan last month, many Japanese thought it was a journal for diligent housemaids. It's been a chore for publishing giant Hearst, trying to adapt Middle America's vintage household-service magazine to the land of bento boxes and cramped apartments. Cover-to-cover challenges range from the magazine's name to its Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Hearst and licensing partner Nihon Keizai Shimbun _ a newspaper company known as Nikkei _ debated using a Japanese translation of the title.

In a move that could bring much-needed aid to food-strapped North Korea, Japanese and North Korean diplomats agreed on Friday to reopen negotiations to normalize relations between the two East Asian countries. After two days of meetings in the Chinese capital, diplomats agreed to an agenda of ambassadorial level discussions leading to an eventual exchange of diplomatic recognition between Tokyo and Pyongyang. In a gesture to appease volatile political sentiments in Japan, North Korea agreed to allow an unspecified number of Japanese women living in Korea to visit their families in Japan.

TOKYO -- Despite having the world`s highest longevity rate for both men and women, Japan also has the highest percentage of men who smoke among the world`s developed nations, according to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. About 61 percent of Japanese men and 13 percent of women are regular smokers, the ministry said, citing results of a 1989 survey previously announced by the government-owned tobacco company. The ministry announced the comparison of smoking rates in advance of the World Health Organization`s observation of May 31 as "No Tobacco Day."

I am sick and tired of this breast-beating over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The atomic bomb was used to end World War II, period. You have to remember we were fighting a brave and determined enemy. The pictures you saw of Japanese soldiers supposedly surrendering were not so. They were mostly Korean laborers. Kamikazes were not just pilots. Japanese women and children were issued bamboo poles with hand grenades on the ends of them. Motor boats called kaitans were packed with explosives. The scheduled invasion of Japan was named operation Coronet in November 1945 and Olympic in April 1946.

Six young women in blue skirts, all new employees at Japanese companies, have come to an orientation seminar to learn everything they need to know to succeed at their jobs. They are learning the proper way to bow _ and to apologize. "I'm terribly sorry," they chirp together in a chorus while practicing their deepest, most respectful bow, a slow bend of precisely 45 degrees. "You have to form a straight line from your waist," the female instructor coaches them. The young women are entering the profession that employs more than half the female work force in white-collar Japan: office clerk.

Lisa Leslie is in vogue. And she has been in Vogue. And she may be in Glamour, Cosmopolitan and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. And now she's in the record books. The U.S. women's Olympic basketball team's center and aspiring fashion model set a U.S. women's Olympic record Wednesday with 35 points in the United States' 108-93 victory over Japan, good for a berth in Friday's semifinals against Australia. Australia was an upset winner over Russia 74-70 in overtime. The United States' Katrina McClain scored 18 points and also tied a U.S. record with 16 rebounds.